California law professor Goodwin Liu, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, April 16, 2010, before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination to be US Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has suggested that Liu is at "the very vanguard of what I would call intellectual judicial activism." The characterization of Liu as a radical does not hold up to reasonable scrutiny. Unfortunately, reasonableness does not seem to carry as much weight as political payback, which seems to be a driving force here.

Perhaps the most cited evidence of Liu's alleged extremism is his pointed critique of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's record during 2006 confirmation hearings. Liu offered chapter and verse of instances in which Alito took a disturbingly expansive view of police powers. Liu concluded with a scathing denunciation of Alito's "vision of America."

Conservative critics of Liu suggest he should be held to the same standard - mainstream legal values - that he applied to Alito. But there is a fundamental difference between the role of a Supreme Court justice (who gets the final verdict on unsettled or ambiguous issues of constitutionality) and an appellate judge (who is obliged to follow precedent). Several prominent conservatives - including Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer in the Bush White House, and Ken Starr, Whitewater prosecutor - have vouched for Liu's intellect, integrity and his standing within the legal mainstream.

He should be confirmed.

Liu on Alito

Opponents of Goodwin Liu have focused on the last paragraph of his 2006 testimony against the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court: "Judge Alito's record envisions an America where police may shoot and kill an unarmed boy to stop him from running way with a stolen purse ... where the FBI may install a camera where you sleep on the promise that they won't turn it on unless an informant is in the room; where a black may be sentenced to death by an all-white jury for killing a white man ... where police may search what a warrant permits, and then some." Liu's 17-page testimony showed that each of those points was supported with a detailed critique of Alito's record. Examples include:

-- Police shooting: Alito had argued that Memphis police were justified in fatally shooting an unarmed 15-year-old purse-theft suspect. Alito said "the state is justified in using whatever force is necessary to defend its laws." The Supreme Court disagreed with the use of lethal force against "an unarmed, nondangerous suspect."

-- Surveillance: Alito had upheld the FBI's warrantless use of a hidden video camera in a suspect's hotel room, suggesting hotel guests don't enjoy an expectation of privacy.

-- Death penalty: Alito did not see discrimination in the prosecution's eviction of all three prospective black jurors who had given the same answers as white jurors in a murder trial involving a black defendant and white victim - even though the prosecution in that Delaware county had struck every prospective black juror in three other capital cases. A federal appeals court rejected Alito's view and upheld the discrimination claim.

-- Search and seizure: In case after case - including the strip search of a 10-year-old girl - Alito was a dissenting voice in suggesting police should have broad authority to carry out searches beyond warrants.